Mihaela Serban

Associate Professor of Law and Society

Year Joined RCNJ: 2010

Contact Information

• Phone: (201) 684-6251
• Email: mserban@ramapo.edu
• Office: G224
• Office Hours: M, R 4-6 pm, or by appointment
• Personal Website

Education:

• Ph.D., Law and Society, New York University
• S.J.D.,  LL.M., Comparative Constitutional Law, Central European University, Hungary
• Licenta in Stiinte Juridice (Licentiate in Law), University of Bucharest School of Law, Romania
• Mihaela Serban CV July 2018

Convening Groups:

• Law and Society, Convener
• Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (minor)
• Human Rights and Genocide Studies (minor)

Founding co-editor, Ramapo Journal of Law and Society

Pre-law advisor

Courses Taught:

• Comparative Legal Systems/Global Legal Order, Contemporary Issues in Law & Society/Law, Power & Inequality, Introduction to Law and Justice, Law and Society, Law and Culture, Law and Development, Transitional Justice, Moot Court, Social Issues, Human Rights, Criminal Law, Constitutional Law, Ethics in a Global Age, Field Studies, Directed Readings, Thesis Supervision

Research Interests:

Law and society in Eastern Europe, human rights, the rule of law, transitional justice

Scholarship:

Articles and book chapters:

• 2018, “Stemming the Tide of Illiberalism? Legal Mobilization and Adversarial Legalism in Central and Eastern Europe,” in Special Issue: Legal Change in Post-Communist States: Courts, Police and Public Administration, eds. Peter Solomon and Kaja Gadowska, Communist and Post-Communist Studies 51(3).
• 2018, “Regime Change and Property Rights Consciousness in Post-Communist Romania,” Law & Social Inquiry 43(3):732-763. Early preview publication February 10, 2017.
• 2015 “Rule of Law Indicators as a Technology of Power in Romania,” in The Quiet Power of Indicators: Measuring Development, Corruption, and the Rule of Law, Sally Engle Merry, Kevin Davis, and Benedict Kingsbury eds., Cambridge University Press.
• 2015 “The Exceptionalism of Housing in the Ideology and Politics of Early Communist Romania (1945-1965)“, Europe-Asia Studies 67(3).
• 2014 “The Loss of Property Rights and the Construction of Legal Consciousness in Early Socialist Romania (1950-1965).” Law & Society Review 48(4).
• 2010   “Surviving Property: Resistance against Urban Housing Nationalization during the Transition to Communism (Romania, 1950-1965),” in Special Issue: Interdisciplinary Legal Studies: The Next Generation, Studies in Law, Politics, and Society 51: 29-66, ed. Austin Sarat.
• 2010   “Law from Below: Women’s Human Rights and Social Movements in New York City” (with Peggy Levitt, Sally Merry and Diana H. Yoon), Law & Society Review 44(1).
• 2009   “‘Bringing Coals to Newcastle’? Human Rights Discourses and Social Change in New York City” (with Diana H. Yoon), Global Networks 9(4): 507-528.
• 2002   “Aspects of Women’s Rights in Poland and Romania” (with Mindy Jane Roseman), in International Studies: Interdisciplinary Political  and Cultural Journal 4(2).
• 2001   “The Romanian Constitutional Court: Law, Politics and Judicial Activism,” Romanian Journal of Society and   Politics 1(1). Pdf
• 2000   “Facing the Past – The Romanian Lustration Law,” Journal of East European Law  7(3-4). Pdf

Edited volume: 

• 2003 Constitutionalism in Transition: Africa and Eastern Europe (International Conference on Comparative Constitutionalism, May   17-20, 2001, Warsaw), Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights. Introduction (pdf)

Book reviews and other publications:

• 2019, Book review: The Politics of Bureaucratic Corruption in Post-Transitional Eastern Europe, by Marina Zaloznaya, Contemporary Sociology: A Journal of Reviews 48(1), 112-113.
• 2017, Publishing Law and Society Research from Outside North America: Reflections from an Eastern European Perspective, Law and Society Review Blog, re-posted Law and Society Institute, Berlin
• 2016 Book Review Essay: East European Faces of Law and Society: Values and Practices, by William B. Simmons (ed.). Leiden, Boston, MA: Brill Nijhoff, 2014, Review of Central and East European Law 41(1).
• 2013 “Housing Nationalization Petitions and the Creation of Socialist Legal Consciousness in Romania,” Conference: Cultures of Grievance in Eastern Europe and Eurasia, Princeton University, March 2013.
• 2013 Book Review: Europe’s Constitutional Mosaic, by Neil Walker, Jo Shaw and Stephen Tierney, Hart Publishing, 2011, Law and Politics Book Review, Vol. 23, No. 2.
• 2012 “Gender and Grantmaking: A Framework,” Institute for Public Affairs, Warsaw, Poland.

Works in progress or under review: 

• Subverting Communism in Romania: Law and Private Property 1945-1965 (book manuscript)
• “Litigating Identity in Fascist and Post-Fascist Romania (1940-1945)”
• “Legal Culture and the Rule of Law in the Context of Immigration and Post-9/11 Terrorism Trials”